A collection of stories, essays and art from autistic authors and artists.

Tuesday, 22 May 2018

Curating the book

Hello all!

It's been a couple of weeks since I last spoke to you because I've been, as the title suggests, curating the book. At the start of the month was the deadline for pitches for the "second half" of Stim, a way to ensure we reached voices and talents beyond my own network. Across the two open calls for pitches (one of which I did pre-launch on Unbound) I've had about 100 pitches.

ONE HUNDRED. Isn't that wonderful?

I've had pitches not only from the UK and Ireland, but from America, France, Russia... People determined to be creative and engage in a project that showcases that. I'm hoping that everyone who pitched will keep pitching for other magazines, books, journals, because I've had the joy of reading a lot of talented work.

As such, I'm narrowing down to the final few who will be selected to be in the book, which is a complicated job. This is the third time I've done this, having worked on the curation of On Anxiety and On Bodies with my micropublisher 3 of Cups Press, but this time I'm going it alone and without my trusty 6 colleagues to bounce ideas off. I spoke about curation a little on my instagram stories today (I'm @littlehux on there, and on Twitter), but this stage is part editorial, part curatorial and part thinking like a reader. I have to swap hats repeatedly to view the book from all angles, and to get an idea of the flow for the book. At the moment my shortlist has about double the amount of space we have in the book, so I'm going to have a tough week of wandering around and thinking.

I'm hoping to have the shortlist finalised and announced at the end of the month.

After this, I'm going to be reaching back out to autistic organisations and pitching some articles to try and promote the book, so I'll be knuckling back down, don't you worry!

As for funding, we're trundling along well. We've hit 36% which is lovely, especially considering the last two months we've been essentially up against early Summer weather and multiple bank holidays. I'm hoping that the next two months (somewhat helped by the additional lineup) will be easier, not least because once we hit 40% all those people following the campaign will get a polite reminder!

If you lovely supporters have any questions, you can comment below or send me a tweet if you'd prefer. I'm always up for talking about this process. In the meantime, plase keep bothering your friends and neighbours to pledge for the book at the end of the month. It would be amazing if we could hit 40% by the end of the month.